153 replies to this topic

[Christian]

I think i just fell in love with this quest.

[Neppy]

Just watched the cave video, and I gotta say that it's looking pretty awesome! Keep the good work up guys!!!

[Timelord]

I'm sold, and can hardly wit to try your demo. Please be sure to keep backups! I wouldn't want to see this meet the fate of some other awesome projects that were lost in a system crash!

I love the new Aquamentus too; I need to try out the enemy editing capabilities of 2.5.

[Kite]

I'm sold, and can hardly wit to try your demo. Please be sure to keep backups! I wouldn't want to see this meet the fate of some other awesome projects that were lost in a system crash!

I love the new Aquamentus too; I need to try out the enemy editing capabilities of 2.5.

Actually, Aquamentus doesn't use 2.50's enemy editor at all. It is entirely done by scripting.

As far as keeping backups, we've got that covered. Losing the entire quest is probably something we would have to do on purpose. We have been using Dropbox to collaborate our work, so that has copies of the quest and its related files dating back to over a year ago. We also have numerous local copies of the quest dating all the way back to 2008 floating around in different places.

The entire process we go through to collaborate over Dropbox is actually kind of neat, so we might work up a more detailed post about that process later if people are interested.

The next major update will be this Sunday. Thanks for the comments.

[LinktheMaster]

Update 3: Scripted Enemies

Hello everyone. This update is going to cover custom enemies that have been created for Fairy Dream. While we definitely will be having more in the quest than this, these are most of the ones you’ll see in April’s demo.

Video:

Here’s a video showcasing the enemies.



Note that unlike the cave shown before, this area will actually not be in the game itself. It was just a little test area I made to showcase the scripts.

List of Enemies:

Now, on to the different types of enemies shown.

Peahat
Because Nick and I felt Z1 peahats are more a nuisance rather than any real threat, we decided to revamp the enemy. The new version is vulnerable to arrows and boomerangs while flying, but swords and other weapons won’t work on it until it’s on the ground. The peahat will also attack Link every so often.

Crow
These stay perched on trees until you get near them. Once they spot you, they will start to fly up, and then they will fly quickly toward Link, swerving a bit if you move out of its path.

Tektite
Like the peahats, tektites just seemed a bit silly, jumping around randomly. So we fixed that. If you’re far away from the tektites, they jump around randomly (albeit a much more limited range), but if you get close to them, they’ll jump toward you similar to the OoT-style.

Beamos
This is a true, blue beamos. It rotates around, and when you’re in its line of sight, it’ll shoot a beam that will hurt you. It gets blocked by solid objects, so take cover!

Pincer
These enemies lurk in pits and water, waiting until you get near. When you get close to them, their eyes will blink a couple times, and then they’ll lunge out at you.

Gel
Now this guy you really need to look out for. This rascally enemy wanders around slowly in dungeons, making absolutely no threatening motions toward Link at all. He’ll barely hurt you should you carelessly bump into it, though. This enemy took 12 hours to script.

… Okay, that last one might be a lie.

Well there you have it. There’s the first round of enemies that we’ll showcase. We have a lot more planned for the game, but these are most of the ones you’ll see in the demo. Also, if anyone would be willing to make us some sprites for enemies (or anything else), we’d love to hear from you!

Next Update:

Our next update will be on February 19th. We’ll see you then.

[Moosh]

This is amazing! How long did these take to script?

[Alex-Link]

this quest just keeps looking better every time awesome job with the enemies, my favorite ones were the pincers

[LinktheMaster]

This is amazing! How long did these take to script?

It varied. The peahat actually took the longest, both because of it being the first enemy script I did in this batch and because its movement is actually somewhat complex. It probably took a good, solid 6 hours once you ignore distractions and such. The rest weren't too bad, only taking a couple of hours each. And that's ignoring the random tweaking that I had to do at the end to get them just right, but those didn't involve much time when you remove having to open up the quest over and over again to make sure it's spot on.

So they took a little while, but they honestly didn't take too long. They're no where near as bad as coding custom bosses.

[blue_knight]

Well done. The scripting looks very solid and enemies look fun to fight against.

[Sheik]

Now I can't wait to try the demo either.

[Dawnlight]

Consider me hooked. Those custom enemies look awesome! I also can't wait for a demo.

[Shane]

All can I say is that I'm really looking forward to that demo, because this is far beyond awesome!

[Neppy]

Those enemies are great!!!! The Peahats, and the Tektites are especially sweet! Those are hugs improvements compared to the jokes that are the Z1 counterparts. These feel more like they are an enemy, rather than an idiot monster randomly moving around, possibly running into you.

[Kite]

Update 4: Save System, Options Screen, and a Cutscene

This update revolves around a cutscene and a progress report on our expo readiness status. Other than maybe that second thing, I'm not sure how interesting this will be. Nonetheless, cutscenes are serious business to us, so not showing at least one off would feel odd.

With that said, here is a video of everything that will be discussed:



Save System:

Make sure to save your game using these buttons.

The nag pictured above appears every single time you open the quest, but you can dismiss it quickly enough by pressing Start. This is done to remind you how to save your game in Fairy Dream because it isn't initiated the same way as most ZC quests. As of RC2, using "End Game" from ZC's menus or "Fast Quit" will actually immediately kill the quest without saving any data, which is why this warning is shown so often.

Also in an effort to make sure people save, the quest will automatically prompt you to save after lengthy cutscenes, after every main dungeon, and other important events. With that said, we will try to not be annoying about it.

The main reason for doing this at all is because we wanted to manage saving on our own with scripting. You can still save almost anywhere, so other than a different set of buttons, this won't change things as far as gameplay.

Options Screen:

3 Hearts, 2x Damage from Enemies, Final Destination.

There really isn't much to say about the options menu. I was mostly just showing that one exists. The difficulty options can only be changed on new save files.

The Cutscene:

Sarashrala... S. Town is the main hub town of the quest. From here, you will be able initiate various side quests in conjunction with the local guild or just explore things in general. Upon entering S. Town for the first time, the previously mentioned guild decides to approach Link about an important (and cliche) event that happened earlier.

Anyway, I think the cutscene shown in the video is a good measure of the detail we put into pretty much every cutscene in the quest. We have 5,056 lines of ZScript for cutscenes as of this update and that is the largest portion of our scripting. But not all of them are talking. Many cutscenes have more obvious action, but you will have to wait for a later update or the demo to see them.

Overall Progress:

As of this update, we are very close to finishing everything that we have deemed critical for the expo demo release. S. Town is actually the last area we have to finish, since it's currently a bit barren. (A future update will probably explore the actual town a bit.) After that, we will be adding extra stuff that wasn't entirely necessary for a demo release and polishing for the most part.

Next Update:

Our next update will be on March 4th. Thanks for the continued support, everyone!

[Jared]

I...I...Rogueport This is amazing!!!I had no idea you guys were making an options menu, or a saving system. Very unique. I'm glad it's going so well. I'm going to explode when the demo is released!!!!!